A new report by Coldwell Banker reveals where the country’s wealthiest individuals are buying properties, listing the top 5 “power markets” for luxury real estate.
Coldwell defines power markets as areas that offer the lifestyle amenities, education, and culture that the uber-rich seek out.
Key features of these markets include airport accessibility and a housing stock that lends itself to privacy, exclusivity and stellar views.
A recent report by Redfin revealed that luxury home sales – or sales of homes priced above $2 million – fell 3.9% in the fourth quarter of 2018, marking the first time in more than two years that sales in this high-end market have fallen on an annual basis.
But Charlie Young, Coldwell President and CEO, said that the median sold price has remained around $1.4 million, holding steady for the last 18 months, and that this is a key sign of stability.
“When you take the long view, the luxury real estate picture is steady and stable.” Here are Coldwell’s top five power markets for buyers and sellers, which Young called hotbeds of luxury home sales at the million-dollar price point and higher: 2018 Top 5 luxury buyer power markets Maui, Hawaii Palm Beach, Florida Washington, D.C. Kauai, Hawaii Brooklyn, New York 2018 Top 5 luxury seller power markets LA Valley, California Detroit, Michigan Las Vegas, Nevada Boulder, Colorado Raleigh, North Carolina Coldwell’s report also revealed other trends in luxury real estate.
High-end real estate in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, had the shortest median days on the market – just three – for single-family homes.
For condos, Orlando, Florida, had the lowest median price per square foot at $156.
Vail, Colorado, ranked the most expensive for condos with a median price of $1,629 per square foot.
Finally, Staten Island, New York, was named the most evolving market, standing out for its notable value compared with the other four boroughs of New York City, as its proximity to Manhattan appeals to buyers.

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In October home sale prices climbed 4.5%, however the percentage of listings that had a price drop of more than 1% reached an 8-year high, according to new data from Redfin.
This October, home sale prices reached a median of $297,200, increasing 2.4% from the previous month, Redfin explained.
Redfin also reported that 32 of the 71 largest metro areas saw home price increase from September, attributing this growth to home sales shifting to more expensive areas, rather than individual homes increasing in value.
“Some homebuyers are adjusting their price range down, and others are backing out of home-buying entirely–deciding that renting is a better deal."
“Sellers are now realizing buyer demand isn’t what it used to be and are dropping their prices.
Notably, the number of homes for sale increased 1.3% from 2017, reaching the highest level of inventory growth since September 2015.
The U.S. Census Bureau announced that residential construction spending was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $556.4 billion in September, 0.6% above the revised August estimate of $553 billion.
Fairweather said that for the remainder of 2018, Redfin will examine how the California wildfires impact national housing market trends.
“The fact is that rising mortgage rates and high home prices have a bigger long-term effect on the local housing market than the fires’ destruction.” As of today, the most recent California wildfires have claimed the lives of 63 people and destroyed more than 135,000 acres.
You can read more about the devastation here.

With more and more renters feeling the affordability crunch, there seemed to be some light on the horizon recently with the steady rise in rents appearing to finally slow down over the last few months.
Nevermind.
As it turns out, rents are still going up and just hit an all-time high, again.
According to the Census data, the median asking rent during the third quarter was $1,003, an increase of $52 over the second quarter and an increase of $91 over the same time period last year.
(Click to enlarge.
In the Northeast, the median asking rent rose from $1,134 in the second quarter to $1,210 in the third quarter.
The largest year-to-date increase is actually in the South, where rents have climbed from $907 in the first quarter to $973 in the third quarter, an increase of $66.
Rents in the West have also risen, from $1,345 in the first quarter to $1,382 in the third quarter, an increase of $37 this year.
So, despite falling in the Midwest and the Northeast, rents went up in the South and West, and all that added up to a $49 increase in rents this year.
The median asking sales price for homes is going up as well.

Among the top 10, San Jose ranked No.
6 and San Francisco No.
8. on a list compiled and released this week by urban planning consulting firm Demographia.
For the ninth consecutive year, Hong Kong claimed the top spot as the least affordable city in the world.
By comparison, the median property price was 9.4 times the median household income in San Jose, 9.2 times in Los Angeles and 8.8 times in San Francisco.
But, the U.S. is also home to all of the nine major affordable markets on Demographia’s list.
Among the most affordable major housing markets in the world, Pittsburgh and Rochester, New York, were tied for No.
1, followed by Oklahoma City; Buffalo, New York; Cincinnati; Cleveland; St. Louis; Indianapolis and Detroit.
Here are the least affordable housing markets in the world: (Cities are listed by median home price as a multiple of median income.)
Hong Kong……….20.9 Vancouver…….….12.6 Sydney……….…...11.7 Melbourne…….....9.7 San Jose……...…9.4 Los Angeles……...9.2 Auckland………....9 San Francisco…...8.8 Honolulu………....8.6 London………......8.3 Toronto……...…...8.3

Social media continues to be an intrinsic part of Lego's marketing strategy, with visual content a key way the brand drives engagement and fosters a sense of community online.
With kids and youngsters being a core part of its target audience, Lego also uses Instagram to focus on ideas for education and play.
The account typically makes use of video in this instance, using Lego for learning.
Promoting Lego Life With an audience of 2.4 million, last year Lego decided to replicate its success on Instagram with the launch of a new visual app – this time specifically designed for young users.
According to reports, Lego Life has proven to be a success, with the brand finding a distinct correlation between the number of times kids return to Lego Life and an increase in the sessions of playing with Lego.
Interactive ads Alongside regular brand content, Lego has also entered Instagram’s advertising arena, seeing success with its paid-for campaigns.
One in particular, created to promote its new ‘Boost’ playset, used the platform’s Canvas ads in Stories.
This is a key component of any successful advertisement, but even more so on Instagram, where users are likely to be particularly wary of branded and sponsored content.
Its focus on user generated content is key, as is posting content that encourages action or communication.
With a highly immersive, quality campaign, it shows that Instagram advertising can actually increase brand sentiment and even have a real impact on sales.

America is in the midst of an economic downturn, which is now projected by some to become a full-blown recession.
And although the housing market is beginning to experience the wrath of a slowing economy, a new report from Realtor.com suggests homebuyers remain hopeful.
According to the company’s survey data, nearly 70% of home shoppers believe the U.S. will enter a recession in the next three years.
However, many of these prospective buyers still express confidence in the market.
“The U.S. economy has been on a hot streak for the last seven years, producing steady economic growth and low unemployment rates,” said Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale.
“Historically, this type of growth hasn’t continued indefinitely, and U.S. home shoppers think it will come to an end sooner rather than later.” In fact, when respondents were asked if the U.S. housing market would fare better or worse than it did during the 2008 economic recession, 41% responded with better.
That being said, 36% of respondents still expect it to be worse, and 23% expect it to be just the same.
Hale said this is because some home shoppers are buying homes with “eyes wide-open and very sober, if not slightly pessimistic.” “When the U.S. enters its next recession, it is unlikely that the housing market will see a sharp nationwide downturn,” Hale added.
NOTE: Realtor.com commissioned Toluna Research to conduct this survey, consisting of 1,015 active home shoppers.
The company defines “active home shoppers” as those who plan to purchase a new home within this year.

As a marketer, improving the design of your website is an essential way to boost your conversion rates.
Make sure that your site is designed so users can find what they are looking for using the lowest amount of clicks possible.
As an example, Intuit started doing this, and saw a 211 percent boost in their conversion rate.
Google Site Search The easier you make things for your visitors, the better your chances are of converting them into actual customers.
Single Page Checkout Most people don’t want to spend a lot of time purchasing things online, and they don’t want to jump through a lot of hoops.
This could help to improve your conversion rate by 20 percent or more, and it is a smart thing to do when you are looking for conversion optimization ideas.
Instead of just placing photos on your product pages, include videos of the products being used.
If they like what they see, they are going to buy, and you will see an increase in your conversion rate.
Color Consistency No one likes to look at a busy website, and they don’t want to be bombarded with a lot of different colors.
Minimal User Input In addition to reduced clicks, it is a good idea to make sure that you don’t ask users for too much information.

As more and more Americans become rent burdened, the homeless rates in the nation’s most unaffordable markets continue to grow, according to the latest data from Zillow.
According to the company, a renter earning the median U.S. income of $61,240 and renting the median-priced apartment of $1,442 is expected to spend about 28% of their income on rent, increasing from the historical norm of 26%.
(Image courtesy of Zillow, click to enlarge) Notably, when the rent burden increases by 2 percentage points, Zillow points out that about 1,500 more people are driven to homelessness.
Zillow gathered this data in collaboration with researchers at the University of New Hampshire, Boston University School of Social Work and the University of Pennsylvania.
The data reveals that the effects of a larger rent burden are “more extreme” in markets where renters are already spending more than 32% of their income.
Zillow Director of Economic Research and Outreach Skylar Olsen said although the nation’s homelessness rate has fallen, some communities still grapple with affordability.
In these areas, the median market rate rent consumes 62.9% of the area's median household income.
Notably, this cluster is home to 15.1% of the total U.S. population but hosts a whopping 47.3% of the nation's homeless population.
“But there are similarities that can be identified, even among communities of wildly varying sizes and locations, and learnings to be shared."
You can read more about the report here.

Particularly for social media marketing, data science promises a lot.
From advanced analysis of social media activity on branded content campaigns to create insightful user personas via social media listening, to complex data patterns made easy to understand via visualizations, to overcoming the perennial problem of ad fraud in advertising ecosystems, data science has potential applications that significantly improve social media for brands.
It’s disappointingly common for people to use data science when they actually mean data analysis or analytics, and that’s not exactly right.
Moving beyond word clouds with data-science-powered tools Word clouds have been trusted tools for social media marketers to analyze social conversations and understand what’s being discussed.
BuzzGraphs, for instance, show you how words are linked, and which words are most frequently used.
Based on the frequency of keywords observed, marketers can identify the most commonly discussed topics in social conversations.
Such analysis can then group people together, separating weakly connected groups.
Visualizations make it practical for marketers to understand these stories and generate insights that can massively improve social media marketing.
Data-science-backed tools can transform how brands conduct market research using social media data.
Social media listening platforms can allow marketers access to global conversations, bringing together large data volumes, capturing customer opinions and trends and feeding the data to a brand’s specific market research campaign: Begin with social media listening for researching a central topic.

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Millennials carry debt and have down payments that are on the small side, according to realtor.com.
The most common debt is on credit cards (had by 78 percent of millennials), followed by a car loan (68 percent), a personal loan (62 percent), a mortgage (62 percent), a student loan (61 percent), and a home equity loan (57 percent).
When comparing debt by generation, just 49 percent of Gen Xers and 9 percent of baby boomers have college debt—a burden thought by many to be closing millennials off from purchasing.
The majority (37 percent) have less than 10 percent saved, versus 34 percent of Gen Xers and 20 percent of baby boomers.
“Existing debt and lower down payments leave younger shoppers more exposed than others to the impact of rising mortgage rates and record-high home prices,” says Danielle Hale, chief economist for realtor.com.
“These obstacles won’t prevent millennials from finding and buying homes, but most will have to adapt to these challenging market conditions by adjusting their home search.” Of all buyers—including millennials—just 17 percent believe they will be unaffected by higher interest rates, and only 21 percent believe they will be unhindered by prices.
For more information, please visit www.realtor.com.
Suzanne De Vita is RISMedia’s online news editor.
Email her your real estate news ideas at sdevita@rismedia.com.
For the latest real estate news and trends, bookmark RISMedia.com.

TruVest, is a national real estate investment company that challenges the conventional investment community to think differently about atypical investments in green technology and real estate notes.
Phone: 833-878-8378